I got my break! My first book sold well in the UK, then went big in the USA! My American agent called me, and at very short notice I found myself flying over to the States, and doing all kinds of publicity work, interviews, book-signings and so on, for several weeks – mainly in New York, but also over in California, so I had to dash back and forward from sea to shining sea until I was dizzy! I was therefore very glad to find myself eventually at a loose end, and with plenty of accrued income from sales.
What to do with both of these? My old friends Gerry and Maureen had a house on the North Carolina Banks, and offered me a period lazing by the Atlantic while my income racked up interest. It was tempting, I must admit. But there was a little, devilish voice in my head which kept up a line of temptation which gradually defeated the notion of sleep, sun, sea... rip-tides, sharks, boredom, day-trips to towns with names like Duck...
The voice went something like this: "You're only thirty-something once! Have a road-trip!"
I had once sat, enthralled for weeks, listening to a twelve-cassette set of readings from William Least-Heat-Moon's "Blue Highways", in which the author tells of tracing a motor-trail across the USA and back, using only the roads which used to appear in blue on old maps – local county roads, ex-turnpikes downgraded when someone built an Interstate, routes that wiggle through the mountains and go in plumbline-straight lines across the prairies. I put an idea to Gerry and Maureen, and I have to say the awkward bloody-mindedness, which that little devilish voice had instilled in me, made me more and more determined as my friends' expressions grew more and more worried! My idea was to arm myself with a Rand-McNally Road Atlas and a hire car, and head off into the American interior. I wasn't planning to go even half as far as William Least-Heat-Moon – just start in a kind of a north-western loop through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and so on, and come back in a southerly loop when my money and time started to run out. I would "do" a bit of Dixie – maybe not deepest, darkest Dixie, but sufficiently deep and dark, from the point of view of a British woman, to be a touch exotic. I had it in mind to see what some of those dots on the Rand-McNally actually were, to head for a spot and find a motel, to eat at diners on the way, to have myself a "road movie" of my own, to be Thelma or Louise without a camera crew and with myself as either Thelma or Louise on her own! I know – silly!
I could tell Gerry and Maureen thought so too. But, ever generous, they refused to let me hire a car. Instead they offered to lend me theirs.
"The Chevy?" I said, excitedly. "Yeah! I should say so! Thanks!"
That was extremely naughty of me. I knew that they meant the Honda Civic, but I also knew that they had a beautifully restored '57 Chevy in the garage too. Gerry's generosity is such that he could not bear to see my disappointment if he told me he had meant the boring Honda, so basically he told me to knock myself out!
There are a handful of items which have been designed in America, which define beauty and defy improvement. The Zippo lighter – I don't smoke, but I could sit flicking one of those on and off all day – the USAF pilot's leather jacket, Chinos, the Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. And, perhaps most beautiful to the eye, the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air! Gerry's was two-tone coffee-and-cream. So I felt like a million gold-plated dollars on the day I drove away from their house on the Banks. I tried not to look in the mirror in case I caught sight of their worried faces again, turned back with a twinge of conscience, and declared myself unequal to the enterprise. No – I was going to have a road-trip. "Sod the expense," I thought. "Give the cat another goldfish!"
The expense, I have to say, refused to be sodded! Those old classics from the 50s burn petrol – guzzle gas – like there's a hole in the tank. Still, I could afford it, and I would never see thirty-something again, unless it was looking back!
Up through Virginia I went, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley, on into the Appalachians and West Virginia. I kept on straight through the mountains, looping westwards, until they became little more than wooded ripples. I marvelled at everything – power lines strung out wherever there was the slightest sign on habitation, adverts for "Mail Pouch" tobacco on the side of barns, gas stations selling BP ["Hey, that's British Petroleum!" – that made me feel a little more at home, but the Chevy made me pull in much more often than I had hoped I would need to], buzzards soaring above the trees...
I drove with my elbow jauntily posed through the open window. Occasionally I would hear a siren behind me, and would pull over to be approached by a policeman. Always they would ask to "see some ID", and always a British passport would perplex them for a while. Always they would call me "Ma'am", and I would use my most clearly-honed British accent to explain that I was "a guest in your beautiful country" and hadn't quite got the measure of the rules of the road yet. And I would smile. It worked.
"Well Ma'am, you violated a such-and-such a mile back, but as you're a stranger here I'm going to let you off, on this occasion. You drive safely now, y'hear?"
I love America!
I drove with the radio on, tuning into one of those local radio stations where they play nothing but country music. "Let's have the full experience," I thought. So I cruised at a steady fifty, while the lead guitar went "wangle-dangle-dang" and the steel guitar went "whoop whoo-oo", as a male or female voice tear-jerked a song of wry sadness. All the radio stations began with "W". Dubya-this, Dubya-that!
I don't know whether I was in West Virginia, Kentucky, or the planet Zarg, but at last I got bored with the wangles and whoops. It had all begun to sound the same. So I fiddled with the radio until I found a station playing "oldies". Now here was something I could sing along to – the Beach Boys! I joined in with gusto.
"After six hours of school I've had enough for the day. I hit the radio dial and turn it up all the way. I gotta dance! Right there on the spot! The beat's really hot! Dance – Dance – Dance – Yeah!"
And after that came another rocker-from-the-locker, an old piece of R&B, which had me bouncing on my seat.
"I'm going to Kansas City – Kansas City here I come. I'm going to Kansas City – Kansas City here I come. They got some crazy little women there And I'm gonna get me one!
I'll be standing on the corner – Twelfth Street and Vine. I'll be standing on the corner – Twelfth Street and Vine. With my Kansas City baby And my bottle of Kansas City...
...Oh heck!"
That undeleted expletive came immediately after there was a bang, followed by a grinding noise, from somewhere inside the works of the car. Hot on the heels of that, the engine began to race, because my foot was still holding down the accelerator, while the gears were not engaged. Some gremlin had gotten its teeth into the transmission.
Luckily I was going downhill, and saw no reason not to coast on for a while. As the road flattened out, and I began to slow I saw that I was approaching a providentially-placed motel. The Chevy had just about enough momentum to roll into a convenient parking place. I got out, and went to see about renting a room for the night.
The clerk asked for ID, of course, and was perplexed by the British passport. I was now not amused by this, it was no longer a charming local quirk, it was simply irritating. But I gritted my teeth, signed the register, and accepted a key. The clerk stepped outside to point the way to my room.
"Nice car," he said.
"It is when it bloody well goes!" I said. "Is there somewhere around here I can eat?"
"Well, we got a vending machine for a muffin or a Danish. I guess there's the diner, though, if you want a meal. That's about a mile up the road."
Hunger overcame irritation and everything else. I transferred my luggage from the trunk of the Chevy to my room, tidied myself up a little, stuffed a few essential into a small rucksack, put on my comfortable trainers, and put my best foot forward. I soon found that a mile in that part of the country is about like a mile in Egypt – a flexible concept. The diner was, I guess, about two-and-a-half miles away.
Now, diners are strange things. The door to a diner is the portal to an alternative universe. Step through it expecting to find yourself on a film set, and you just might. I entered this one. Just as one would expect, most of the conversation stopped. Heads turned, mostly in baseball caps, a few in Stetsons. It was quiet enough to hear the music in the background – yeah, it was "wangle-dangle-dang, whoop whoo-oo"! As I made my way to the counter, some of the men who had turned to stare at this outlandish newcomer had the residual politeness to tip a hat and say, "Ma'am"! I guess I replied with a wan, British smile! An innocent abroad, give or take a letter.
